Is it possible to say that a book is a can't-put-it-down page-turner, as well as a solid history, an anthropological overview of food in the US? The answer is a resounding yes, if you are talking about The United States of Arugula, author David Kamp's witty and entertaining account of food changes in America, of the crazes and the crazies that wrought those changes.
The book is replete with biographical details (a letter written by Julia Child in which she doubts that she will appear often on TV), lots of insider gossip (a goon threatening the beloved and benign Jacques Pepin), and supporting historical data for those not wresting memories from the recesses of their minds. The United States of Arugula is history enlivened by gossip, and Kamp has a benevolent but keen eye for the passions and egos that were strong enough to shake the US out of its jello-mold mentality. This is a book "about how food in America got better, and how it hopped the fence from the ghettos of home economics and snobby gourmandism to the expansive realm of popular culture."
Kamp begins his history and sets his humorous tone with quotes from a 1939 newspaper column that introduced a pie called pizza, and carefully gave the exact pronunciation ("peet-za"). He wends his way quickly through the days when cuisine belonged to a very few famous French chefs working in New York, then digs in solidly when he arrives at the dynamic threesome who were the founders of what we now call the 'food establishment.' These three passionate food-lovers were none other than James Beard, Julia Child, and Craig Claiborne. Kamp delves into their biographies, their struggles in a country on the verge of seeing the possibilities of food beyond the tried, true and frequently boring.
When he moves into the beginnings of the hippie movement and the disillusions that plagued that period of history, Kamp weaves those discontents into an exploration of the influences made by the drab and tasteless hippie health conscious foods. He chronicles its impact on the few, such as Alice Waters, who would shift the country into an awareness of fresh and seasonal while leaving tasteless behind. He traces the rise of the celebrity chefs, of the food network and its power to create those celebrities, then continues on the path into the present, a time in which the celebrity chef is not slaving in the kitchen but opening yet another restaurant in yet another city.
Even if you don't follow the food pages in the newspapers, you'll gaze up at the cookbooks on your shelves and recognize some of the names mentioned in the book, for Kamp has missed few of the most popular and prolific food writers.
Knowing that history has no conclusion, and aware that we have yet to know the full extent of the impact that environmental concerns will have on an entire nation, Kamp does not end this book, but makes his own wishes for what the future might hold. It's our turn to write the next chapter.
click to read an excerpt
About the author: David Kamp has been a writer and editor for Vanity Fair and GQ for more than a decade, specializing in writing about the arts. His 2004 Vanity Fair article about Johnny Cash's last years was nominated for a National Magazine Award, and "The Rock Snob's Dictionary," a feature he co-created for the magazine, was selected by guest editor Nick Hornby for the anthology Da Capo Best Music Writing 2001. Kamp is also the co-author of the book version of The Rock Snob's Dictionary and its sequel, The Film Snob's Dictionary. He began his career in the late 1980s at Spy magazine, the New York satirical monthly. Kamp lives in New York City with his wife and two children.
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